Urbanhomemaker

Encouraging Thanksgiving During the Thanksgiving Season

Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and will be a bittersweet celebration for my family this year. Although I usually look forward to the opportunity to take a couple days off before Thanksgiving to focus on making my favorite Thanksgiving foods with my children, this year will be different. My daughter Laura will be getting married January 3, and is making final preparations to not only get married but move to Clarksville, TN to be with her husband-to-be, Brandon. They will be stationed at Ft Campbell. As most of you already know, this will be our family's first Thanksgiving and holiday season without my late husband Duane who passed on to glory in April of this year.

I have decided that instead of focusing on the busyness of the holidays and a wedding, that I want to focus on Thanksgiving, I mean all the ways, large and small, God has met me in this difficult year. I'll be honest, there have been some very rugged challenges and I continue to struggle my way through denial, anger, and grief on a regular basis. I'm determined to begin a "Thanksgiving Journal" to record God's faithfulness through this year and through the holiday season.

Monday, I wrestled with worry and anxiety about some computer/business issues as well as wedding concerns and I really wondered if I was going to get through the day. By Tuesday morning, I realized all three things I worried and fretted over all day Monday had positive outcomes as of Tuesday morning, (yesterday). I knew I needed to record these small victories before I forget.

Just recently I learned that 40% of what we worry about never happens, 30% of our worries is over the past, 12% is over matters of which we have no control, and 8% are legitimate concerns. Well, I may not have the percentages exactly right, but Tuesday morning (yesterday) I realized I worried needlessly and I needed to focus on thankfulness.

I suspect you and I are a bit like the Israelites who quickly forgot all the miraculous things God did for them to get them to the promised land alone! Well, it just seems like the month of November is the time to focus on Thanksgiving more and the food preparations less. Perhaps you will be challenged to join me and begin a little prayer notebook filled with things to be thankful for, answered prayers to unnecessary worries and scriptural promises that we can cling to and claim during difficulties.

Here are two scriptures that have been getting me through:
Phil 4:6-7- "Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your request be made known unto God. And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."

Psalm 34:8,19 "O taste and see that the Lord is good, blessed is the man that trusteth in him...Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the LORD delivereth him out of them all."

I know I am not the only one who had some serious setbacks in 2008, I would love to hear from others of you and ask that you share the scriptures with me and others that have helped you through trial after trial this past year. Please post your comments or email me at marilyn@urbanhomemaker.com with the scriptures that get you through trials. Let's encourage one-another during this Thanksgiving season.

Untitled Comment

{ 06:52 , 2008-Nov-5 } { Posted by melaniedawn }

Thank you for posting those scriptures. My big setback this year has been the passing of my father in July. This will be our first thanksgiving without him. It is very painful, but I still have a Father Who has been with me since before the beginning of time.
melanie

Untitled Comment

{ 09:54 , 2008-Nov-5 } { Posted by gabbie427 }

My father died after a long battle with cancer in October of 2006, and that first Thanksgiving and Christmas without him was hard, but we made it. We gathered like we always did and told stories about dad that year. We had his favorite foods and we laughed, and of course, we cried.

Then mom died in March of 2007 after battling cancer. Then we went through another Thanksgiving and Christmas without another parent. We were heartbroken of course. But we couldn't live our life in grief. No, we lived it as if a dedication to them. Instead of woe is me, it was, mom would have been so proud of us!

God's Blessings,
Amy Jo